Page:Alices adventures in Cambridge.djvu/27

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IN CAMBRIDGE

hours what it takes a Professor three months to teach."

"How very convenient," Alice said. "Could you explain something now for me?"

"I already know what you are going to ask," said Humpty Dumpty. "From long practice in foretelling examination questions I have become a regular clairvoyant. You were about to ask me why I am a Widow. Because men may come, and men may go, but I go on forever, of course. That's too easy. Ask another."

"But that isn't my question at all," said Alice. "I just wanted you to explain some poetry I read this morning. This is how it went:

" 'T was taussig, and the bushnell hart
Did byron hurlbut in the rand,
All barrett was the wendell (Bart.)
And the charles t. cope-land."

"Nothing is easier," Humpty Dumpty replied. "Taussig means gusty, showery weather. A bushnell hart is an animal—a

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